Jason Voorhees
| label4 = Signature weapon: | data4 = Machete | label5 = Primary location: | data5 = Camp Crystal Lake | header6 = Development information | label7 = Creators: | data7 = Victor Miller Ron Kurz Sean S. Cunningham Tom Savini | label8 = Portrayed by: |data8 = Ari Lehman (child) Warrington Gillette Steve Daskewisz Richard Brooker Ted White Tom Morga C. J. Graham Kane Hodder Ken Kirzinger Derek Mears }}Jason Voorhees is a character from the ''Friday the 13th'' series. He first appeared in Friday the 13th (1980) as the young son of camp cook-turned-murderer, Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S. Cunningham, and Tom Savini, Jason was not originally intended to carry the series as the main antagonist. The character has subsequently been represented in various other media, including novels, video games, comic books, and a cross-over film with another iconic horror film character, Freddy Krueger. The character has primarily been an antagonist in the films, whether by stalking and killing the other characters, or acting as a psychological threat to the protagonist, as is the case in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Since Lehman's portrayal, the character has been represented by numerous actors and stuntmen, sometimes by more than one at a time; this has caused some controversy as to who should receive credit for the portrayal. Kane Hodder is the best known of the stuntmen to portray Jason Voorhees, having played the character in four consecutive films. The character's physical appearance has gone through many transformations, with various special makeup effects artists making their mark on the character's design, including makeup artist Stan Winston. Tom Savini's initial design has been the basis for many of the later incarnations. The trademark hockey goalie mask did not appear until Friday the 13th Part III. Since Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, filmmakers have given Jason superhuman strength, regenerative powers, and near invulnerability. He has been seen as a sympathetic character, whose motivation for killing has been cited as being driven by the immoral actions of his victims and his own rage over having drowned as a child. Jason Voorhees has been featured in various humor magazines, referenced in feature films, parodied in television shows, and was the inspiration for a horror punk band. Several toy lines have been released based on various versions of the character from the Friday the 13th films. Jason Voorhees's hockey mask is a widely recognized image in popular culture. Biography Childhood Jason Voorhees was born June 13th, 1946 to Pamela and Elias Voorhees.Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday Jason suffered from physical deformities and possibly mental disabilties, and experienced a sheltered childhood; he did not attend school and the only contact he had was with his mother.Friday the 13th Part 2 However, during the summer of 1957, Jason attended Camp Crystal Lake, where his mother worked as a cook. Unfortunately, his disturbing appearance earned him ridicule and persecution from the other children, who, on one occasion, teased him by trying to cover his face and calling him a "freak show". In an effort to escape their taunts, a terrified Jason ran down the pier and fell into the Crystal Lake. Unable to swim, he began to struggle and disappeared under the water.Friday the 13thFreddy vs. Jason Jason's body was never recovered and he was believed to have drowned in the lake. His mother blamed the camp counsellors who were supposed to have been looking after Jason, but had been too busy having sex to prevent the accident. In the summer of 1958, Mrs. Voorhees snuck into Camp Crystal Lake at night and murdered Barry and Claudette, the two teenagers that were supposed to have been watching the children. After this event the camp was closed. Years later, Mrs. Voorhees heard about various attempt to re-open the camp; she set fire to the camp and poisoned the water supply. Following these events, locals believed the area was jinxed and dubbed the camp, "Camp Blood". The camp was deserted up until 1979, until a man named Steve Christy tried to re-open the camp that his parents once owned. Mrs. Voorhees stalked the camp, killing off Christy and six of the hired counselors. The only survivor of the massacre was a girl named Alice Hardy. She fought off Mrs. Voorhees and decapitated her with a machete. After Alice killed Mrs. Voorhees, she got in a canoe and passed out. When Alice was recovered by police, she claimed that "the boy" had dragged her under the water. The confused police told her that, upon searching the campground, they hadn't found any boy.boy ol boy....this is stupid!!! Birth of a killer Two months later, Alice was at home trying to get over the horrible events that took place at the camp, when she was attacked in her apartment by Jason, who killed her with an ice pick. How Jason was still alive following his supposed childhood drowning was unknown. Jason returned to Crystal Lake, where he continued to live in the forest, keeping a grisly shrine to his mother's decapitated corpse. In 1982, he chased local teenager Chris Higgins through the woods in the middle of the night. Chris passed out and woke up in her own bed; nobody would believe her story of the man who attacked her.Friday the 13th Part III Five years later, a man named Paul Holt opened up a camp counselor training ground at Crystal Lake, despite local police warning him he was located too close to the site of the "Camp Blood" massacre. Jason, now wearing a pillow case over his head to hide his deformed face, broke into the camp grounds to punish the counselors for their intrusion. After killing six of them, he struggled with a girl named Ginny Field. Ginny, who was familiar with the local legend of Jason Voorhees and Camp Blood, relied on psychology to defeat the killer. Finding Jason's shack in the woods, she donned Mrs. Voorhees sweater and took on the role of Jason's mother, distracting him long enough to drive a machete into Jason's shoulder. Ginny and Paul left Jason for dead and returned to the camp, where Ginny was attacked from behind, and blacked out. The next morning, Ginny was being taken away in an ambulance, but neither Jason nor Paul were anywhere to be found. The next day, Jason killed a couple living in a home near Crystal Lake and acquired new clothes. Then he made his way to a vacationing spot called Higgins Haven, where he killed seven vacationing teenagers and three bikers. It was there that he aquired a hockey mask from one of his victims, Shelley Finkelstein. The only survivor of Jason's rampage was Chris Higgins, the girl he had attacked two years earlier. Chris managed to hold Jason off for some time, inflicting various severe injuries on him, none of which proved fatal; she stabbed him in the leg and hanged him on a rope before finally swinging an axe into his face. Jason finally collapsed, and a severely disturbed Chris was discovered the next morning by police, making bizarre claims that a "lady in the lake" attacked her. Believing Jason to be dead, the paramedics took his body to the Wessex County Mortuary, where he soon regained consciousness. Killing two hospital staff on his escape, Jason returned to Crystal Lake, where he came across the home of twelve-year-old Tommy Jarvis and his family. Jason murdered a group of teenagers who were renting the house next door before being discovered by Tommy's sister, Trish Jarvis. As Trish tried desperately to defend herself and her brother from Jason's attack, Tommy formed an idea from newspaper clipping telling the story of Jason Voorhees. Shaving his head to resemble the young Jason, Tommy managed to distract the confused killer before impaling him through the skull with his own machete. When the mutilated Jason still showed signs of life, Tommy desperate started hacking away at his body in an effort to ensure he was dead.Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Following his death, Jason was buried at Eternal Peace Cemetery in the Crystal Lake area,Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives although local officials were under the belief that he had been cremated. Meanwhile, the traumatised Tommy Jarvis spent his adolesence in a series of psychiatric facilities, suffering visions of Jason Voorhees. Showing signs of progress, he was transported to a halfway house in the hopes that he could soon re-enter society. However, a brutal incident at the facility caused local ambulance driver Roy Burns to take on the guise of Jason Voorhees, killing most of the residents at the halfway house as revenge for the death of his son. Although some authorities initially credited the real Jason for the murders, Tommy eventually defeated the killer and revealed his true identity.Friday the 13th: A New Beginning Resurrection The events at the halfway house only contributed to Tommy's psychological problems. Upon his release from a mental institution he and his friend travelled to Eternal Peace Cemetery, seeking resolution between him and Jason. Tommy planned to destroy Jason's remains, but upon digging him up, rammed a metal rod through his heart in a fit of anger. As Tommy prepared to cremate the corpse, lightning struck the rod and brought Jason back to life. After watching Jason kill his friend, Tommy fled to the local police office when he told Sheriff Garris the events that took place; Garris thought he was crazy and put him in a cell for the night. With nobody to stop him, Jason returned to Camp Crystal Lake—reopened as Camp Forest Green—and proceeded to kill his way through the new counsellors. Tommy escaped the cell with the help of Garris' daughter Megan, and travelled to the camp, where he carried out his plan to return Jason "home"; wrapping a chain around his neck, Tommy sunk Jason to the bottom of the lake and drowned him once again. While at the bottom of the lake, his throat was ground up by Megan using the propeller blades of a boat. As Jason rotted in the depths of the lake, a girl named Tina Shepard returned to the area help her get over the death of her father, whom she had accidentally killed in Crystal Lake with her telekinetic powers years earlier. While at the lake she attempted to use her powers to resurrect her father, but succeeded only in raising Jason from the dead. Jason killed a group teenagers vacationing next door to Tina, as well Tina's mother and doctor. Tina confronted Jason with her powers, eventually causing an explosion which sent him flying back into the lake. As Jason recovered from this assault, Tina was saved by the spirit of her father, who rose out of the water and dragged Jason back into the lake.Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood'' Resurrected once again by an underwater electric cable snagged by a boat anchor, Jason climbed aboard the S.S. Lazarus, a cruise ship full of high school graduates bound for New York City. He killed most of the passengers and sank the Lazarus, before chasing the few survivors—which included Rennie Wickam and Sean Robertson—into the heart of Manhattan. Rennie had been experiencing visions of Jason throughout the journey after an incident in her childhood when her stepfather pushed her into Crystal Lake as an attempt to make her swim. She nearly died when a young Jason Voorhees tried to drag her underwater; whether this event actually happened or was just another bizarre hallucination was never proven. Jason followed Rennie and Sean into the sewers of Manhattan, where he fell victim to a gush of toxic waste which flooded the tunnel and engulfed him. Rennie and Sean escaped as Jason was regressed to a child by the toxic substance; again, this may or may not have been one of Rennie's visions as opposed to actual events.Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan To Hell and back after being killed by his niece Jessica Kimble.]] Jason escaped New York and eventually found his way back to Crystal Lake. Meanwhile, the F.B.I began to realize the threat Jason Voorhees posed and took action against him. Setting up a trap, they managed to physically blow Jason's body apart. Thinking him dead and gone, they took his remains to a local morgue. However, the coroner became hypnotized by Jason's still-beating heart and proceeded to eat it. Jason managed to take possession of the coroner's body and escape the F.B.I. However, his dark soul could not exist indefinitely inside just anyone; he needed the body of another Voorhees to be truly reborn. Burning his way through several bodies in the process, Jason attempted to track down his only living relatives, his sister Diana Kimble, niece Jessica Kimble, and Jessica's baby daughter Stephanie. Jessica's ex-boyfriend Steven Freeman learned from Creighton Duke—a bounty hunter determined to take down Jason Voorhees—that, as Jason could be reborn through a Voorhees, so too could he killed by one. As Jason was reborn through the corpse of Diana, Stephen and Jessica worked together to kill him once and for all. Jessica suceeded in stabbing her uncle through the heart with a mystical dagger, Jason was dragged into Hell. Jason lingered in the bowels of Hell, reliving his murders at Camp Crystal Lake in a seemingly eternal nightmare. He was finally motivated to "wake up" by Freddy Krueger, a supernatural serial killer whose specialty was killing teenagers in their dreams. Posing as Pamela Voorhees, Freddy manipulated Jason into going to Elm Street in the town of Springwood, whose citizens had repressed the memory of Freddy, thus robbing him of his powers. When Jason started murdering teenagers on Elm Street, the people of Springwood began to suspect that Freddy Krueger had returned, and their fear replenished the dream demon's powers. However, Freddy struggled to get rid of Jason, who began imposing on his territory and stealing his potential victims. Losing his patience, Freddy revealed his true identity to Jason, causing a battle to erupt between the two killers, which ranged from Freddy's dream world to Jason's home of Crystal Lake. During the fight, Freddy discovered Jason's subconscious fear of drowning and exploited it by returning him to the moment he drowned as a child. However, when Jason woke up from his nightmare, he was able to inflict physical damage of Freddy, ripping his arm off and stabbing him through the chest with his own clawed hand. As Freddy was finished off by his would-be victim Lori Campbell, the defeated Jason sank back into Crystal Lake. He emerged sometime later holding Freddy's severed head, which then winked and laughed; whether this was a dream or reality is unknown. Future By the year 2008, Jason had been captured by the U.S. government and was being held at Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility. Government researcher Rowan LaFontaine led several attempts to execute him, but was unsuccessfully due to Jason's uncanny ability to regenerate damaged body cells. Eventually, Rowan decided to cryogenically freeze Jason until they could find out what else to do with him, but the government already had plans to make profit by studying his regenerative powers. Jason managed to break free from his contraints and murdered several soldiers in the facility, before Rowan lured him into the cryonic chamber. Just as she activated the cryogenic suspension, Jason stabbed through the door with his machete, freezing them both inside the sealed chamber. As the centuries pass, Earth became too polluted to support life, with mankind moving to a new planet called Earth Two. Jason and Rowan were finally discovered in the year 2455 by a group of students on a field trip to the abandoned world. They took the two bodies aboard their spacecraft, The Grendel, and succeeded in reanimating Rowan, but declared Jason deceased. When Jason unthawed, he proceeded to murder everyone aboard The Grendel. Although the ship's team of soliders, led by Sgt. Brodski, did their best to repel the killer, only the android Kay-Em 14 was successful in destroying Jason, blasting his body apart. Jason's corpse was left in the medical station, where his body was rebuild by the computer's advanced nanotechnology. The computer replaced his missing body tissue with cybernetic technology, transforming him into "Uber Jason", who attacked Rowan and the students again. They distracted Jason with a virtual reality simulation of Crystal Lake, while Sgt. Brodski attempted to repair the damaged ship. As the others escaped, Brodski sacrificed himself by maneuvering himself and Jason away from the survivors and into the atmospere of Earth Two, where they were apparently burned to death and and landed in a forest lake. All that appeared to remain of the terror that was Jason Voorhees is his charred hockey mask; with this, it would appear that Jason was truly and permanently dead.Jason X Remake Another timeline featuring Jason Voorhees exists that was created by the 2009 re-imagining of Friday the 13th. To see this characters's information on this version of the character go to Jason Voorhees (remake timeline). Powers and abilities Jason is extremely difficult to kill, withstanding injuries that would be fatal to anyone else, such as being stabbed in the shoulder, being hanged, or even receiving an axe to the face. He is not impossible to kill at first, but after being killed by Tommy and resurrected by a bolt of lightning, Jason is even harder to kill, and even stronger than before. He can survive bullet wounds, electrocution, and to an extent, fire. Apparently he can breathe underwater, despite his drowning in Crystal Lake as a mortal at the age of 11. Freddy does nearly drown Jason in his nightmare at one point, but before doing so he reverted him back to his human form (in the dream world only). He can also survive getting blown to pieces, in which his heart can hypnotize anyone into eating it, causing the victim to be possessed. While possessing a victim, his reflection in a mirror is that of his true form. After a while, Jason must transfer into someone else's body as a worm creature traveling from his current victim's mouth to his next victim's mouth. This will cause the previous victim to gruesomely melt away. He can also leave the victim's body in the form of a Hellbaby. In order to be reborn, he must possess the body - whether it be living or dead - of another Voorhees. He also has super strength, as he can lift a person up with one arm (usually while killing them), crushes their heads with their bare hands, smashes through walls, and at one point, punches a person's head off. If Jason is killed, he can be resurrected by various means (most notably electricity), which is why in order for him to truly be destroyed, there must be no corpse left at all, as he is dragged to Hell at the end of Jason Goes to Hell when another Voorhees (Jessica Kimble) stabs him in the heart with a special dagger, the only way to permanently kill him. However, even in this case, someone from the inside can resurrect him. When burned in Earth 2's atmosphere, however, it appears that only his hockey mask remains, leaving him completely destroyed; however, novelizations of the film state that he survived. Every time he is resurrected, or recovers from serious and near-fatal injuries, he becomes more powerful. Jason can also regenerate. On a few occasions he is stabbed in the eyes, yet retains his eyesight. For example, in Freddy vs. Jason, Freddy stabs him in the eyes with his clawed glove, yet in Jason X, his eyes are perfectly intact. His fingers were also cut off, yet they have grown back by Jason X. In Part VI, his neck is broken, but in Part VII, his neck appears to be intact. Though quite vast, Jason's regeneration ability does seem to have its limits; in Jason X, he is apparently killed when Kay-Em 14 blasts off his right arm, left leg, the right side of his chest and abdomen, and most of his head. When he is subjected to a regenerative nanotechnology process in Jason X and transformed into a cyborg, Jason becomes even stronger; his strength is enhanced to the point where he can punch through solid steel, he is completely bulletproof, and can survive in the vacuum of space unaided. In other media *Jason appeared in some episodes of Robot Chicken. In one of them, he stalks the Scooby Doo gang. In another episode, That Hurts Me, he appeared alongside other horror movie villains - namely Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Ghostface, Pinhead, and Leatherface - on the Big Brother show. Jason's role is relatively minor. While playing charades with Michael and Leatherface (none of the three can talk), he did the robot and the funky chicken (Robot Chicken), though Freddy says that the answer was the Da Vinci Code. *Jason also appeared in an episode of Family Guy, It Takes A Village Idiot, and I Married One. He talks in a sophisticated voice and is interviewed on the lake being cleaned, though he stabs two girls dead. He is also the manager of a store and threatens to kill the clerk if she screws up. *He also appeared in the spoof movie Stan Helsing as an antagonist. Like Leatherface, he has the least screen time. His appearance is changed to that of a hockey player (as a reference to his hockey mask), with a red hockey shirt and wielding a hockey stick as a weapon. He is renamed Mason. He and Michael are the third and fourth to be defeated; Stan pulls on their masks, and, after Teddy sprays ketchup on them, kicks them out through the door where they are eaten by Sammyboy the dog. *He also appeared in several comics, including a comic based off Jason X, a battle with Freddy and Ash (Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, set after Freddy vs. Jason), and a crossover series with Leatherface. Gallery See Jason Voorhees/Gallery References Concept and creation Creating a monster Initially created by Victor Miller, Jason's final design was a combined effort by Miller, Ron Kurz, and Tom Savini.Grove, David, pp. 50, 55, 57 The name "Jason" is a combination of "Josh" and "Ian", Miller's two sons, and "Voorhees" was inspired by a girl that Miller knew at high school, whose last name was Van Voorhees. Miller felt it was a "creepy-sounding name", which was perfect for his character. Miller initially wrote Jason as a normal looking child, but the crew behind the film decided he needed to be deformed. Victor Miller explained Jason wasn't meant to be a creature from the "Black Lagoon" in his script, and scripted Jason as a mentally disabled young boy; it was Savini who made Jason deformed. Ron Kurz confirmed that Miller's version of Jason was that of a normal child, but claims that it was his idea to turn Jason into a "mongoloid creature", and have him "jump out of the lake at the end of the film". Miller later agreed the ending would not have been as good if he looked like "Betsy Palmer at eight years old". Miller wrote a scene where Alice is attacked in a canoe by Jason, and then she wakes up in a hospital bed. Miller's intention was to get as close to Carrie's ending as possible. Savini believed having Jason pop out of the lake would be psychologically disturbing to the audience, and since Alice is supposed to be dreaming, the crew could get away with adding anything they wanted. When it came time to cast the role of Jason, Ari Lehman, who had received a part in Sean Cunningham's Manny's Orphans,Grove, David, p. 27 arrived to read for the character of Jack. Before he could get started, Cunningham walked in and handed him a new part. Without having read a single word, Cunningham just looked at Ari and said, "You're the right size, you've got it." In the original Friday the 13th, Ari Lehman is seen only in a brief flashback as the surprise ending.Bracke, Peter, p. 50 He is not the only actor to portray a young Jason, Timothy Burr Mirkovich played the same part in Jason Takes Manhattan, and Spencer Stump in Freddy vs. Jason, but Lehman was the first. The adult role of Jason Voorhees has been played by various actors, some not credited, others taking great pride in their parts. Due to the physical demands the adult character requires, and the lack of emotional depth depicted, many of the actors since have been stuntmen. The most well known among them is Kane Hodder, who is cited as the best to take up the role. Many ideas were suggested for the sequel to Friday the 13th, including making the title part of a serialized franchise, where each succeeding film would be its own story and not related to any previous film under the Friday the 13th moniker. It was Phil Scuderi, one of the producers for the original film, which suggested bringing Jason back for the sequel. The director Steve Miner felt it was the obvious direction to take the series, as he felt the audience wanted to know more about the child who attacked Alice in the lake. Miner decided to pretend as if Alice did not see the "real Jason" in her dream, and Jason had survived his drowning as a boy and grown up. After killing Jason in The Final Chapter, it was the director Joseph Zito's intention to leave the door open for the studio to make more films with Tommy Jarvis as the main antagonist. Screenwriter Barney Cohen felt Jarvis would become a substitute for Jason, but the idea was never fully developed in A New Beginning.Bracke, Peter, p. 122 Director and co-screenwriter Danny Steinmann disliked the idea of Jason not being the killer, but decided to use Tommy's fear of Jason as the primary story. This idea was immediately abandoned in Jason Lives, when A New Beginning did not spark the "creative success" the studio was looking for. Executive producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. wanted to bring Jason back, and he did not care how it was achieved.Bracke, Peter, pp. 146–148 Since A New Beginning, no sequel has attempted to replace Jason as the main antagonist. Miller, who has not seen any of the sequels, took issue with all of them because they made Jason the villain. Miller believes the best part of his screenplay was that it was about a mother avenging the senseless death of her son. Miller stated, "Jason was dead from the very beginning; he was a victim, not a villain." Men behind the mask Jason Voorhees went from deceased child to full grown man for Friday the 13th Part 2, and Warrington Gillette was hired to play the role. Gillette auditioned for the role of Paul; the role eventually went to John Furey. Under the belief that he had attended the Hollywood Stuntman's School, Gillette was offered the role of Jason Voorhees.Bracke, Peter, pp. 60–65 Initially Gillette was unsure about the character, but the idea of starring in his first movie grew on Gillette,Grove, David, pp. 69–71 and he also thought the role was amusing. It became apparent Gillette could not perform the stunts necessary, so the stunt coordinator Cliff Cudney brought in Steve Daskawisz. Daskawisz filmed all of the scenes except the opening sequence, and the unmasking shot at the end; Gillette returned for the unmasking scenes. Gillette received the credit for playing Jason, while Daskawisz was given credit as the stunt double. When Part 3 was released the following year, Daskawisz was credited as Jason for the reused footage from the climax of the film. Initially, Daskawisz was asked to return to the role for Part 3, but it would have required him to pay for his own transportation and housing during filming. Having secured a part on Guiding Light, Daskawisz passed on the role. Now wanting a "bigger and stronger-looking" Jason, one that was also "more athletic and powerful", Steve Miner hired former trapeze artist Richard Brooker. After a simple conversation, Miner decided he was the right person for the job. Being new to the country, Brooker believed that "playing a psychopathic killer" was the best way into the movie business. Brooker became the first actor to wear Jason's now signature hockey mask. According to Brooker, "It felt great with the mask on. It just felt like I really was Jason because I didn't have anything to wear before that."Grove, David, pp. 91–92, 94, 100 For The Final Chapter, Joseph Zito brought his own spin to the character, one that required a "real hardcore stuntman"; Ted White was hired to perform the role.Grove, David, p. 113 White, who only took the job for the money, did "get into the Jason psychology" when he arrived on the set. White went so far as to not speak to any of the other actors for long stretches. As filming continued, White's experience was not pleasant, and in one instance, he went to battle for co-star Judie Aronson, who played Samantha, when the director kept her naked in the lake for extended periods of time. Displeased with his experience from filming, White removed his name from the credits.Bracke, Peter, p. 119 As with Friday the 13th Part 2, there was confusion over who performed the role in A New Beginning, partly due to the fact that Jason is not the literal antagonist in the film. When Ted White turned down the opportunity to return, Dick Wieand was cast.Grove, David, p. 131 Wieand is credited as Roy Burns, the film's actual murderer, but it was stuntman Tom Morga who performed in the few flashes of Jason, as well as portraying Roy in almost all of the masked scenes.Bracke, Peter, pp. 129, 136 Wieand has been outspoken about his lack of enthusiasm over his role in the film. Feeling alienated during the shoot, Wieand spent most of his time in his trailer. By comparison, Morga enjoyed his time as Jason, making sure he "really got into the character". A nightclub manager in Glendale, C.J. Graham went into interview for the role of Jason in Jason Lives, but was initially passed over because he had no experience as a stuntman.Bracke, Peter, pp. 157–159 Dan Bradley was hired, but Paramount executives felt Bradley did not have the right physique to play the role, and Graham was hired to replace him.Grove, David, pp. 144, 148 Although Bradley was replaced early during filming, he can still be seen in the paintball sequence of the film. Graham opted to perform most of his own stunts, including the scene where Jason is caught on fire while battling Tommy in the lake. The rest of the cast spoke highly of Graham, remarking that he never complained during all the uncomfortable situations he was placed in. Graham had no intention of being an actor, or a stuntman, but the idea of playing the "bad guy", who gets to wear prosthetics, intrigued him. Graham was not brought back to reprise the role, but has often been cited as speaking highly of his time in the part. Kane Hodder took over the role in The New Blood which he carried consecutively for a total of four films. He previously worked alongside John Carl Buechler, the director, on a film called Prison. Based on his experience working with Hodder, Buechler petitioned Frank Mancuso Jr. to hire him, but Mancuso was apprehensive about Hodder's limited size. Knowing he planned to use full body prosthetics, Buechler scheduled a test screening, the first in Friday the 13th history for the character, and Mancuso immediately gave Hodder approval upon seeing him.Bracke, Peter, pp. 181–182, 185 It is Buechler's contention that Hodder gave Jason his first true personality, based on the emotions, namely the rage, that Hodder would emit while acting the part. According to Hodder, he wanted to "get in touch with Jason's thirst for revenge", and try to better understand his motivation to kill.Grove, David, pp. 154–155 For the character's movements, Hodder decided, after viewing the previous films, that he would approach Jason as a more "quick and agile" individual than he had seen in the previous sequels. John Carl Buechler felt that Kane had "natural affinity for the role", so much that Kane's appearance, when wearing the mask, would often terrify the cast, crew, and in one incident a lone stranger that he came across on his walk back to his trailer. Initially, Frank Mancuso Jr. and Barbara Sachs planned to use a Canadian stuntperson for Jason Takes Manhattan. Hodder acted as his own voice, calling and requesting that he be allowed to reprise the role; the ultimate decision was left to director Rob Hedden, who intended to use Hodder, because he felt Hodder knew the lore of the series.Bracke, Peter, pp. 198–200 With Sean Cunningham's return as producer for Jason Goes to Hell, Hodder felt his chances of reprising the role were even better. Hodder had worked as Cunningham's stunt coordinator for years, not to mention having already played the character in the previous two films.Bracke, Peter, pp. 231–232 Regardless, Adam Marcus, the director for Jason Goes to Hell, always had the intention of hiring Hodder for the role. Jason X would mark Hodder's last performance as Jason, to date. Todd Farmer, who wrote the screenplay for Jason X, knew Hodder would play Jason from the beginning. Jim Isaac was a fan of Hodder's work on the previous films, so hiring him came easy. New Line believed Freddy vs. Jason needed a fresh start, and choose a new actor for Jason. Cunningham disagreed with their decision, believing Hodder was the best choice for the role. Hodder did receive the script for Freddy vs. Jason, and had a meeting with director Ronny Yu and New Line executives, but Matthew Barry and Yu felt the role should be recast to fit Yu's image of Jason. According to Hodder, New Line failed to provide him with a reason for the recasting, but Yu has explained he wanted a slower, more deliberate Jason, and less of the aggressive movements that Hodder had used in the previous films.Grove, David, p. 217 Yu and development executive Jeff Katz recognized the outcry among fans over the replacement of Hodder as Jason, but stood by their choice in recasting. The role eventually went to Ken Kirzinger, a Canadian stuntperson who worked on Jason Takes Manhattan. There are conflicting reports over the reason Kirzinger was cast. According to Yu, Kirzinger was hired because he was taller than Robert Englund, the actor who portrays Freddy Krueger. Kirzinger stands 6' 5", compared to the 6' 3" of Kane Hodder, and Yu wanted a much larger actor to tower over the 5' 10" Englund. Kirzinger believes his experience on Part VIII helped him land the part, as Kirzinger doubled for Hodder on two scenes for the film, but also believes he was simply sized up and handed the job. Although he was hired by the crew, New Line did not officially cast Kirzinger until first seeing him on film. Kirzinger's first scene was Jason walking down Elm Street. New Line wanted a specific movement in Jason's walk; Kirzinger met their expectations and signed a contract with the studio. Stuntman Derek Mears was hired to portray Jason Voorhees at the recommendation of makeup special effects supervisor Scott Stoddard. Mears's pleasant demeanor had the studio worried about his ability to portray such a menacing character on screen, but Mears assured them that he was up to the role. When Mears went in to audition for the role he was asked why they should hire an actor over just another guy in a mask. As Mears explained, portraying Jason is similar to Greek Mask Work, where the mask and the actor are two separate entities, and, based on the scene, you will get variate combinations of mask and actor in the performance. Design The physical design of Jason Voorhees has gone through many subtle or radical changes. For Friday the 13th, the task of coming up with Jason's appearance was the responsibility of Tom Savini, whose design for Jason was inspired by someone Savini knew as a child, whose eyes and ears did not line up straight. The original design called for Jason to have hair, but Savini and his crew opted to make him bald, so he would look like a "hydrocephalic, mongoloid pinhead", with a dome-shaped head. Savini created a plaster mold of Ari Lehman's head, and used that to create prosthetics for his face. Lehman personally added mud, from the bottom of the lake, all over his body to make himself appear "really slimy." For Part 2, Steve Miner asked Carl Fullerton, the make-up effects supervisor, to stick to Savini's original design, but Fullerton only had a day to design and sculpt a new head. Fullerton drew a rough sketch of what he believed Jason should look like, and had it approved by Miner. Fullerton added long hair to the character. Gillette had to spend hours in a chair as they applied rubber forms all over his face, keeping one eye closed while the "droopy eye" application was in place. Gillette's eye was closed for twelve hours at a time while he was filming the final scenes of the film. False teeth, created by a local dentist, were used to distort Gillette's face. Much of the basic concept of Fullerton's design went away with Part 3. Miner wanted to use a combination of the designs from Tom Savini and Carl Fullerton, but as work progressed it began to lean more and more toward Savini's concept.Grove, David, p. 103 Stan Winston was hired to create a design for Jason's head, but the eyes were level and Doug White, the make-up artist for Part 3, needed a droopy right eye. White did keep Winston's design for the back of the head, because the crew did not have the time to design an entirely new head for Jason. The process of creating Jason's look was hard work for White, who had to constantly make alterations to Richard Brooker's face, even up to the last day of filming. from a 1950s Detroit Red Wings hockey mask, and would become a staple for the character for the rest of the series.]] The script for Part 3 called for Jason to wear a mask to cover his face, having worn a bag over his head in Part 2; what no one knew at the time was that the mask chosen would become a trademark for the character, and one instantly recognizable in popular culture in the years to come. During production, Steve Miner called for a lighting check, but none of the effects crew wanted to apply any make-up for the light check, so they decided to just throw a mask on Brooker. Martin Jay Sadoff, the film's 3D effects supervisor, kept a bag with him full of hockey gear, as he was a hockey fan, and he pulled out a Detroit Red Wings goaltender mask for the test.Bracke, Peter, pp. 84, 86 Miner loved the mask, but during test shots it was too small. Using a substance called VacuForm, Doug White enlarged the mask and created a new mold to work with. After White finished the molds, Terry Ballard placed the new red triangles on the mask to give it a unique appearance. Holes would be punched into the mask, and the markings were altered, making it different from Sadoff's mask. There were two prosthetic face masks created for Richard Brooker to wear underneath the hockey mask. One mask was composed of approximately 11 different appliances, and took about 6 hours to apply to Brooker's face; this mask was used for scenes where the hockey mask was removed. In the scenes where the hockey mask is over the face, a simple head mask was created. This once piece mask would simply slip on over Brooker's head, exposing his face but not the rest of his head. Tom Savini returned to make-up duties for The Final Chapter. He agreed to return because he felt he should be the one to bring Jason full circle in terms of his look from child to man.Grove, David, p. 124 Savini used his design from the original Friday the 13th, with the same practice of application as before, just molded from Ted White's face. Since Jason is not the actual killer in A New Beginning, it wasn't necessary to do any major designing for Jason's look. Only a head mask to cover the top and back of the head, like the one Brooker wore while wearing the hockey mask, was needed for the film. Make-up artist Louis Lazzara, who cites A New Beginning as almost a direct sequel to The Final Chapter, did base his head-mask on Tom Savini's design for The Final Chapter.Grove, David, p. 137 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood sought to make Jason more of a "classic monster along the lines of Frankenstein."Grove, David, p. 157 From the beginning, Buechler tried to tie the previous films together by having Jason's appearance reflect that of the damage he received in the previous installments. Buechler wanted the motor boat damage from Jason Lives, and the axe and machete cuts Jason received in Part 3 and Part 4 to part of the design for The New Blood. Since Jason had been submerged under water in the previous entry, the effects team wanted Jason to appear "rotted", with bones and ribs showing, and for Jason's features to have a more defined feel to them. Howard Berger was inspired by Carl Fullerton's design in The New Blood, and wanted to incorporate the exposed flesh concept more into his model for Jason Goes to Hell. Berger designed Jason's skin to overlap with the mask, to make it appear as if they had fused and he could no longer remove his mask. Gregory Nicotero and Berger sculpted a full-body, foam latex suit to be worn under the costume by Kane Hodder. The idea was to reveal as much of Jason's skin as possible, because Nicotero and Berger knew the physical character would not be seen for most of the film. Stephen Dupuis was given the task of redesigning Jason for the tenth Friday the 13th film. One concept brought into the film was Jason's regenerative abilities. Dupuis gave the character more hair, and more of a natural flesh appearance, to illustrate the constant regeneration the character goes through; Dupuis wanted a more "gothic" design for Jason, so he added chains and shackles, and made the hockey mask more angular. Jim Isaac, and the rest of his crew, wanted to create an entirely new Jason at some point in the film. The idea was for the teens to completely destroy Jason's body, allowing the futuristic technology to bring him back to life. What was referred to as Über-Jason was designed to have chunks of metal growing from his body, bonded by tendrils that grew into the metal, all pushing through a leather suit. The metal was created from VacuForm, the same material used to increase the size of the original hockey mask, and was attached by Velcro. The tendrils were made from silicone. All of the pieces were crafted onto one suit, including an entire head piece, which Hodder wore. The make-up effects team added zippers along the side of the suit, which allowed Hodder to enter and exit the suit within 15 minutes. By the time Freddy vs. Jason entered production there had been ten previous Friday the 13th films. Make-up effects artist Terezakis wanted his own mark on Jason's look. Terezakis wanted Jason to be less rotted and decomposed, and more defined so that the audience would see a new Jason, but still recognized the face. Terezakis tried to keep continuity with the previous films, but recognized that had he followed them too literally, then "Jason would have been reduced to a pile of goo." Ronny Yu wanted everything surrounding the hockey mask to act as a frame, making the mask the focal point of each shot. To achieve this, Terezakis created a "pooled-blood look" for the character, by painting the skin black, based on the idea the blood had pooled in the back of his head, because he had been lying on his back for a long time. As with other make-up artists before him, Terezakis followed Savini's original skull design, and aged it appropriately. For the 2009 Friday the 13th, effects artist Scott Stoddard took inspiration from Carl Fullerton's design in Friday the 13th Part 2 and Tom Savini's work in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Stoddard wanted to make sure that Jason still appeared human, and not some monster. Stoddard's vision of Jason includes hair loss, skin rashes, and the traditional deformities in his face, but he attempted to craft Jason's look in a way that would allow for a more human side to be seen. Stoddard took inspiration from the third and fourth films when designing Jason's hockey mask. The make-up artist managed to get his hands on an original set piece, which he studied and later sculpted. Although he had a sculpt of one of the original masks, Stoddard did not want to replicate the entire thing one hundred percent. As Stoddard explains, "Because I didn't want to take something that already existed, there were things I thought were great, but there were things I wanted to change a bit. Make it custom, but keep all the fundamental designs. Especially the markings on the forehead and cheeks. Age them down a bit, break them up." In the end, Stoddard crafted six versions of the mask, each with varying degrees of wear. Characteristics In his original appearance, Jason was scripted as a mentally disabled young boy.Bracke, Peter, pp. 34–36 Since Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees has been depicted as a non-verbal, indestructible, machete-wielding mass murderer. With the exception of flashbacks of Jason drowning as a child, and a brief scene in Jason Goes To Hell where his spirit is possessing another body, the character has never spoken in any of the sequels to the original Friday the 13th. Online magazine Salon's Andrew O'Hehir describes Jason as a "silent, expressionless...blank slate." When discussing Jason psychologically, Sean S. Cunningham stated, "...he doesn't have any personality. He's like a great white shark. You can't really defeat him. All you can hope for is to survive."Grove, David, p. 211 Since Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, Jason has been a "virtually indestructible" being. Tom McLoughlin, the film's director, felt it was silly that Jason had previously been just another guy in a mask, who would kill people left and right, but get "beaten up and knocked down by the heroine at the end." McLoughlin wanted Jason to be more of a "formidable, unstoppable monster." Many have given suggestions as Jason's motivation for killing. Ken Kirzinger refers to Jason as a "psychotic mama's boy gone horribly awry...Very resilient. You can't kill him, but he feels pain, just not like everyone else."Grove, David, pp. 221–22 Kirzinger goes on to say to Jason is a "psycho-savant", and believes his actions are based on pleasing his mother, and not anything personal.Bracke, Peter, pp. 280–286 Andrew O'Hehir has stated, "Coursing hormones act, of course, as smelling salts to prudish Jason, that ever-vigilant enforcer of William Bennett-style values." Todd Farmer, writer for Jason X, wrote the scene where Jason wakes from cryonic hibernation just as two of the teenagers are having sex. Farmer liked the idea that sex acts triggered Jason back to life.Bracke, Peter, pp. 243, 248, 257–258 Whatever his motivations, Kane Hodder believes there is a limit to what he will do. According to Hodder, Jason might violently murder any person he comes across, but when Jason Takes Manhattan called for Hodder to kick the lead character's dog, Hodder refused. When it comes to hurting a dog, Hodder believes Jason would not act with disregard.Grove, David, p. 185 In an early draft of Freddy vs. Jason, it was decided that one of the villains needed a redeemable factor. Ronald D. Moore, co-writer of the first draft, explained that Jason was the easiest to make redeemable, because no one had ventured into the psychology surrounding the character prior. Moore saw the character as a "blank slate", and felt he was a character the audience could really root for. Another draft, penned by Mark Protosevich, followed Moore's idea of Jason having a redeemable quality. In the draft, Jason protects a student named Rachel Daniels and her unborn child. Protosevich explained, "It gets into this whole idea of there being two kinds of monsters. Freddy is a figure of actual pure evil and Jason is more like a figure of vengeance who punishes people he feels don't deserve to live. Ultimately, the two of them clash and Jason becomes an honorable monster." Writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who wrote the final draft of the film, disagreed about making Jason a hero; although they drew comparisons between the fact that Freddy was a victimizer and Jason was a victim. They stated, "We did not want to make Jason any less scary. He's still a brutal killer... We never wanted to put them in a situation where Jason is a hero... They're both villains to be equally feared." Brenna O'Brien, co-founder of Fridaythe13thfilms.com, saw the character as having sympathetic qualities. She stated, "Jason was a deformed child who almost drowned and then spent the rest of his childhood growing up alone in the woods. He saw his mother get murdered by a camp counselor in the first Friday the 13th, and so now he exacts his revenge on anyone who returns to Camp Crystal Lake. Teenage fans can identify with that sense of rejection and isolation, which you can't really get from other killers like Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers." As Jason went through some characterization changes in the 2009 film, Derek Mears likens him more to a combination of John Rambo, Tarzan and the Abominable Snowman from Looney Tunes. To him, this Jason is similar to Rambo because he sets up the other characters to fall into his traps. Like Rambo, he is more calculated because he feels that he has been wronged and he is fighting back, and is meant to be more sympathetic in this film. That being said, Fuller and Form contend that they did not want to make Jason too sympathetic to the audience. As Brad Fuller explains, "We do not want him to be sympathetic. Jason is not a comedic character, he is not sympathetic. He's a killing machine. Plain and simple." California State University's Media Psychology Lab surveyed 1,166 people Americans aged from 16 to 91 on the psychological appeal of movie monsters. Many of the characteristics associated with Jason Voorhees were appealing to the participants. In the survey, Jason was considered to be an "unstoppable killing machine." Participants were impressed by the "cornicopic feats of slicing and dicing a seemingly endless number of adolescents and the occasional adult." Out of the ten monsters used in the survey—which included Vampires, Freddy Krueger, Frankenstein's monster, Michael Myers, Godzilla, Chucky, Hannibal Lecter, King Kong, and the Alien—Jason scored the highest in all the categories involving killing variables. Further characteristics that appealed to the participants included Jason's "immortality, his apparent enjoyment of killing and his superhuman strength." In popular culture Jason Voorhees has been established as one of the leading cultural icons of American popular culture. In 1992, Jason was awarded the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award. He was the first of only three completely fictional characters to be given the award. Godzilla, in 1996, and Chewbacca, in 1997, are the other two. Jason was named #26 in Wizard magazine's 100 greatest villains of all time. Universal Studios theme parks, in collaboration with New Line Cinema, used the character for their Halloween Horror Nights event. The character has been produced and marketed under various merchandizes over the years. In 1988, Screamin' toys produced a model kit where you could build your own Jason statuette. The kit required the owner to cut and paint various parts in order to assemble the figure. Six years later, Screamin' toys issued a new model kit for Jason Goes to Hell. Both kits are now out of production. McFarlane Toys released two toy lines, one in 1998 and the other in 2002. The first was a figure of Jason from Jason Goes to Hell, and the other was of Über-Jason from Jason X. Since McFarlane's last line in 2002, there has been a steady production of action figures, dolls, and statuettes. These include tie-ins with the film Freddy vs. Jason (2003). Jason has made an appearance in two video games. His first appearance was in 1989, when LJN, an American game company known for its games based on popular movies in the 80s and early 90s, released ''Friday the 13th'' on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The premise involved the gamer, who picks one of six camp counselors as their player, trying to save the campers from Jason, while battling various enemies throughout the game. On October 13, 2006, a Friday the 13th game was released for mobile phones. The game puts the user in the persona of Jason as he battles the undead. The character has been referenced, or made cameo appearances in various entertainment mediums. Outside of literature sources based on the character, Jason has been featured in a variety of magazines and comic strips. Cracked magazine has released several issues featuring parodies of Jason, as well as being featured on two of their covers. Mad magazine has featured the character in almost a dozen stories. He's appeared twice in the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm. Inspired by his own experience, Ari Lehman founded a band called FIRSTJASON. Lehman's band is classified as horror punk, being influenced by the sounds of the Dead Kennedys and The Misfits. The band's name pays homage to Lehman's portrayal of Jason Voorhees in the original Friday the 13th. One of the band's songs is entitled, "Jason is watching". }} In 1986, coinciding with the release of Jason Lives, Alice Cooper released "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" from his album Constrictor. The song was written to "signal Jason's big return" to the cinema, having been almost entirely absent in the previous film. Rapper Eminem has referenced Jason in several of his songs. The song "Criminal", from the album The Marshall Mathers LP, mentions Jason specifically, while songs "Amityville" and "Off the Wall"—the latter featured fellow rapper Redman—contain Harry Manfredini's music "ki,ki,ki...ma,ma,ma" from the film series. Eminem will sometimes wear a hockey mask during concerts. Other rap artists that have referenced Jason include Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, and LL Cool J. VH1 issued an advertisement for their Vogue Fashion Awards which was labeled "Friday the 20th", and featured Jason's mask created out of rhinestone. Jason has been referenced or parodied in films and television shows. In the film Scream, directed by Freddy Krueger creator Wes Craven, actress Drew Barrymore's character is being stalked by a killer, who calls her on her home phone. In order to survive, she must answer the man's trivia questions. One question is, "name the killer in Friday the 13th." She incorrectly guesses Jason, who did not become the killer for the franchise until Part 2. Writer Kevin Williamson claimed his inspiration for this scene came when he asked this question in a bar while a group was playing a movie trivia quiz game. He received a free drink, because nobody could get the answer right. In another Wes Craven film, Cursed, a wax sculpture of Jason, from Jason Goes to Hell, can be seen in a wax museum. The stop motion animated television show Robot Chicken features Jason in three of its comedy sketches. In episode seventeen, "Operation: Rich in Spirit", the mystery-solving teenagers from Scooby-Doo arrive at Camp Crystal Lake to investigate the Jason Voorhees murders, and are killed off one-by-one. Velma is the only survivor, and in typical Scooby-Doo fashion, rips off Jason's mask to reveal his true identity: Old Man Phillips. In episode nineteen, "That Hurts Me", Jason reappears, this time a housemate of "Horror Movie Big Brother", alongside other famous slasher movie killers such as Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, and Leatherface, Pinhead and Ghostface. Three years later, in episode sixty-two, Jason is shown on the days before and after a typical Friday the 13th. Jason is spoofed in the season five episode of Family Guy entitled "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One". The so-called "Mr. Voorhees" explains to Asian reporter Trisha Takanawa how happy he is to see local wildlife return following the cleanup and rejuvenation of Lake Quahog. He reappears later in the episode as the manager of the "Britches and Hose" clothing store. As opposed to his monstrous personality in the films, Jason is depicted here as polite and articulate, albeit still a psychopath; he murders random swimmers and threatens to kill his employee if she screws up. In an episode of The Simpsons, Jason appears in a Halloween episode sitting on the couch with Freddy Krueger waiting for the family to arrive. After being asked where they are by Freddy, Jason responds, "Ehh, whaddya gonna do?" and turns the TV on. He also appears in The Simpsons episode "Stop, or My Dog Will Shoot!", alongside Pinhead, menacing Bart in a fantasy sequence. The South Park episodes "Imaginationland Episode II" and "III" feature Jason among an assortment of other villains and monsters as an inhabitant of the "bad side" of Imaginationland, a world populated by fictional characters. This version of Jason has an effeminate voice and describes the removal of Strawberry Shortcake's eyeball as "super hardcore". References External links * * Jason Voorhees at the Horror Film Wiki * Jason Voorhees at the Friday the 13th Wiki * [http://x-entertainment.com/halloween/2004/october25/ The Many Faces of Jason - a look at the various shots of Jason behind the mask] Category:Child characters in film Category:Friday the 13th characters Category:Horror film villains Category:Mortal Kombat guest characters Category:Science fiction film characters Category:Warner Bros. characters Category:Fictional cyborgs Category:Fictional demons Category:Fictional hermits Category:Fictional mass murderers Category:Fictional monsters Category:Fictional orphans Category:Fictional rampage and spree killers Category:Fictional sororicides Category:Fictional bullying victims Category:Fictional child abuse victims Category:Fictional zombies and revenants Category:Fictional centenarians Category:Fictional immortals Category:Fictional cryonically preserved characters Category:Fictional characters who have been resurrected Category:Fictional characters with superhuman strength Category:Fictional characters with accelerated healing Category:Fictional characters with disfigurements Category:Fictional characters with mental retardation Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1980